Everything is Connected
by silversurf4
Summary: Begins at the beginning, but in this version of reality Crews and Reese are lovers - and they have been since the start.  Completely AU  or it happens without us noticing
1. Chapter 1 Merit Badge

**Everything is Connected (Unintentionally Always)**

**Setting**: Begins at the beginning, but in this version of reality, Crews and Reese are lovers…and they have been since the start.

**Merit Badge**

The first time was intentional. He was new, he was headstrong and she was responsible for him. LAPD's newest detective given a badge and as far as everyone was concerned it was straight blackmail – or as the official news release read "in accordance with the terms of his settlement," which weren't to be discussed. He might have been the most hated man in the Department, but she had a feeling that wasn't something new for him. She was unsure if he was a test for her or the vice versa, but either way she was fresh out of rehab, just back on the rotation. She had no partner and he was the price of getting back on the street.

She was outwardly clean or so her department mandated piss tests would reflect, but still using – drinking anyway and his pretend chipper attitude irked her. His "in your face" style of addressing their partnering was brushed aside. She'd decide when and where that talk would happen – _damn it!_ But Dani Reese knew just how to get headstrong men under her thumb, with her limber young body.

Charlie Crews was a problem assigned to her and he knew it. He didn't seem to care either way, he did what he wanted and dared her to turn him into the "rat squad," as he termed it. But in the moments when she finally drew him out from the guise of his Zen veneer; he went from lippy, prickly perfectly coifed partner to a hot, hungry lover without much prompting at all. All she'd had to do was push the right buttons. And let's face it with a man four months out of prison where he hadn't seen or been with a woman for twelve years – those buttons were large and obvious.

She'd found him alone in the morgue, talking to the body of a dead ten-year-old boy with whom he had a better connection than anyone he worked with. He didn't see embarrassed when she asked what he was doing.

"Seeking clarity," he responded flatly without a hint of emotion.

She circled him thrice slowly like a predatory animal looking for a weakness, while he remained seated and unmoving, just his eyes watched her. Each rotation brought her closer to him in a devolving spiral. She knew this dance by heart. He'd succumb to her wiles and then she'd own him, just as she had a dozen men prior. Her conquests just in the department alone were legendary and they didn't know about her weekend hunting expeditions when she sought danger in dark places. This guy was no match for her.

She'd brushed against him one too many times with her blouse open showing cleavage before the man in him noticed her, despite the Zen Detective's better efforts not to. His response was sudden and immediate; it was honest and eager.

"Tell me if I'm reading this wrong," was his only warning as he stood and backed her into a corner. She shook her head and he descended on her to feed like a vampire. He went from Zen spouting fruit freak to hungry attacker in 0.6 seconds. It was startling the rapidity of his transition and the voraciousness of his appetite.

It wasn't pretty; it was cold and impersonal in the stainless steel quiet of the morgue, ten feet from death. His hands were ice and then they were fire. His fingers dug into her skin hard, leaving red marks even on her tanned flesh. Later bruises would form; blue shadows of their sins written in her flesh. But Dani liked the pain, the punishment; what she was doing was wrong and she knew it.

What he was doing was instinct, but he feared it. He was strong and commanding, part of her liked that about him. He could take control of their position anytime he chose, but instead he kept facing forward looking at her. Many men who'd spent that much time in prison would have turned her against the wall and had their way. They'd just as soon not know; sex was for them, not their partner.

He was stiff like a piece of cold steel. His eyes burned with intensity, but she just looked away. His lean body felt taut and hard under her nimble hands as she tried not to look at his many scars. Sounds seemed an insult in a place so somber, so they stifled themselves, but his vigor brought her unconsciously to the point of enjoying herself. She couldn't help the tiny trails of blood left in the wake of her nails down his pale skin. He sunk his teeth into her shoulder to keep from crying out.

This place was solemn, sacred and cold, but they were burning each other with ferocious energy. The strength of response was stunning as he resisted the impulse to tear her clothing just barely. She could feel him holding back; restraining himself and it pissed her off. He lifted her onto a cold counter, but the burn of his hardness into her tempered the sensation against her bare buttocks. As he entered her, it was at once and memorable. Stars shot through her head as he slammed into her fully; then he paused trying to regain some measure of control. She deprived him of any vestige of control by viciously rocking against him. She slid up and down the length of shaft, griping him by the shoulders. He shuddered, his head lolled back and a deep groan left his chest.

She rocked again and was rewarded with his throaty growl, which sounded too deep to have come from the tall, fair man. His restraint and the power he held in check meant he was still showing her some deference and civility. She became committed to erasing that from his vocabulary. She wanted him raw and entirely undone. While the strength of his will was mighty and she found it arousing, she was intent on breaking him.

She jammed any meaningful emotional response down deep inside and flexed the muscles of her pelvic walls to grip him tighter. Their friction increased and she moaned softly as he was able to angle her so he bottomed out with each thrust. She stuffed her vocalization down deep within and redoubled her effort to drive him mad. She gripped him against her harder and increased the rhythm of their coupling to a frantic pace. He got the message and bucked wildly.

Again she saw stars as he drove deeply and hit all the right spots. A man who hadn't been with a woman in twelve years wasn't supposed to be this good. But he paid attention, he knew when he'd hit a sweet spot and he'd revisit it time and again. She wanted it, him - to be perfunctory. She didn't want to orgasm out of spite, but her body rebelled and she felt it ripple through her. In the haze of her vision, she watched a sly smile blossom on his face.

_Damn him!_ She didn't care about him. He didn't care about her; they were supposed to be the other's tools. She needed control of him. He just needed human contact; it didn't matter that it was her; but that he seemed bent on seeing her, knowing her. He would not be conquered and bowed as other men. She wasn't used to that level of restraint. He would require extra attention. She raked her nails up his pale exposed thighs and he stiffened and grunted something unintelligible unable to control his orgasm any longer. She'd won – sort of.

He finished quickly, which was to be expected, but showed a tiny sliver of gentleness when he withdrew as he moved to kiss her. She ducked her head. Sex didn't have to be intimate and she certainly didn't mean this to be. He leaned close anyway inhaling the scent of them together. He forced both hands up under her damp hair, but rather than overpower her and steal or force a kiss; he pressed soft lips to her sweaty brow and murmured, "It's okay. I understand."

She pushed him off roughly. He didn't understand. How could he? He was still insolent and outside her control. _God damn him!_ This would require effort, but she'd dominate him just as she had other men in her way; he'd just take longer. She stormed off and he looked at the spare ceiling of the morgue as silence once more descended; then he pulled up and re-buttoned his pants. He almost chuckled, but the morgue was not a place for laughter.

"I'm gonna go find your killer now," he told the still body of John Gibney. "My partner and I are gonna find your killer,' he added as he found the smell of her clung to him. He needed a shower and fresh perspective. Reese was nothing like what he expected, but he was very grateful for a female partner nonetheless.

* * *

><p>Later in the darkness of that crack house, covered in her darkest fears, she cried out for him. She was the human contact he sought - in the most unlikely of people. The Buddha says we must accept life as it comes – everything that happens is right. She had to be that right.<p>

He found the dead man, the dope, the act of taking another's life all vanished at the sound of panic in her voice. He knew she didn't want him; not that way – which made her plea all the more heartbreaking. As he lifted her into the tub, he was reminded of how small and light she was again. He flashed to his hands on the soft flesh of her buttocks as he lifted her onto the countertop.

Water sprayed and cascaded down the front of her shirt, every curve of her luscious body; one she'd never let him really enjoy was silhouetted in slick outline for him. She reached out to him, subconsciously, but the instant her hand met the warmth of his body she rejected him. He offered to help her from the tub, but walls and layers of darkness separated them. She was broken like him, a kindred spirit. They were inexorably drawn to each other as the moth to the flame that will scorch it. She walked into the light and he again tried to tell her he understood.

"We don't ever have to talk about it," he said. He meant both this and their earlier fiery coupling in the morgue. She ignored him entirely, but by the end of the case as they walked Arthur Tins along the gangway with Mark Rawls menacing in the courtyard behind him; his words escaped her mouth almost reverently, "everything is connected." There was wonder in her voice and he'd put it there.


	2. Chapter 2  Tear Asunder

**Everything is Connected: **_Each episode of the series has an accompanying vignette that weaves their behind the scenes interaction between the scenes we got to see._

**Tear Asunder**

She hated how he watched her like a science project as they interviewed the drunken frat boys in the lounge. She was a "pretty, pretty cop" and she knew it. His eyes connected with hers and something akin to disinterested jealousy rippled across their placid blue green surface. He wasn't jealous, but he was possessive – of her. It was intriguing and slightly flattering.

She thought he'd have gotten the message after she nearly electrocuted him in that pool. The head butt he'd given Jake Silvers was impressive and had given her great insight into the fact that he wasn't just stubborn - he truly was hardheaded, but then they both went swimming anyway. Besides a bunch of cops standing around pointing guns at a swimming pool was just stupid – her way was better plus and it knocked Crews out guaranteeing that he'd shut up.

When they fished him out and laid him on the deck his wet clothes clung to his body in ways that reminded her of his clean lines and sinewy muscles. She toed him with her boot and shouted his name to wake him. _Christ,_ she hoped she hadn't killed him. It seemed impossible to permanently damage him – or to even get past his armor. She was rapidly realizing there was far more to Charlie Crews than a blackmailed badge and a settlement from the city.

They sat in that interview room with Jake Silvers, the morning of the murder. She was thinking about how easy this one was and how fast she could make murder one stick. Jake couldn't remember what happened, Anna's blood was all over him, he had a history of violence when drinking, but Crews… and his damned "eyes are the windows to the soul" shit. Then the "Anna-porn" they found in Jake's lawyer's room gave her doubts too.

His thing with "innocent until proven guilty" turned out to be a thing with her too. Why couldn't anything be simple? Why couldn't Charlie Crews just give in, give up, let her win? She considered that had that been his nature – he probably wouldn't have survived prison.

* * *

><p>The next time she seduced him it was far more deliberate, more finessed and in more normal a setting than the morgue. She was determined to have the ultimate influence over him. So after they interviewed witnesses and catalogued wedding gifts she deliberately closed and locked the door to Jake and Anna's suite. Ostensibly it was still a crime scene, but forensic left hours ago. They retained possession of it because it was a handy place to interview witnesses – and to seduce your partner.<p>

She affixed the chain with a deliberately slow slide and turned to find him looking at her oddly. Just a hint of wry smile graced his thin lips and his eyebrow twitched in wonder or astonishment, she wasn't sure which. She took off her shirt and told him to "put down the blender," which he did without argument. He understood immediately what was to happen next.

He swept the duvet off the bed intent on making use of it for its intended purpose. She shook her head no. This was sex, not lovemaking. He toed off his shoes as she shimmied out of her jeans and dropped his pants on the floor. She walked under his chin and stroked him through his boxer briefs. His cock leapt to reach her hand. She smiled slyly and an instant later found herself flat on her back on the soft bed.

"I said no," she warned, pushing against his chest. He hadn't even bothered to take off his shirt, his jacket and tie. He was only naked from the waist down, just the business end of things.

"If you won't let me kiss you then we're staying on the bed," he countered. There was resolve in his voice and iron in his shaft as he pressed himself against her. She almost called the whole thing off right there, but for the fact that he'd have won their little struggle.

"Fine," she barked and turned away. She refused to give him her hot little mouth with that quick pink tongue he so desperately wanted to taste. His hands trailed her arms to the wrist and then just as suddenly her arms were pinned over her head.

"What are we doing?" he inquired curious and more than a little amused. She glared at him. He was trying to know something unknowable. She wasn't giving him shit. She didn't even know what they were doing because things never took this long with most men. He continued to look at her intently.

"You told me you didn't think about the wedding, the dress or the bridesmaids - but I know you thought about the honeymoon? That first night? Right? That's never any good without some practice," he teased laving her neck from her collarbone to her earlobe. He cooled the entire area with his breath and when she rocked against him he issued little "tsk, tsk," noises in her ear chiding her impatience and making her furious.

"Over anxious girls don't get what they came for," he withdrew.

Her black eyes blazed at him. He wasn't sure if it was heat or fury because she refused to speak to him. He arched a brow in challenge and released her hands. Just as fast his warm hands were on her hips and dragging her panties over her hips in moments. His head dipped and she could only see his auburn hair buried in her belly as he thrust his tongue into her navel. She squirmed and he pulled the panties free.

As the air above her was freed, she sat up determined to seize control of the situation, which had spiraled out of bounds. She stood and when she turned he was seated on the bed's edge without his boxers. His erection thrust out like a sword and he beckoned to her with his hand.

Normally, she'd have the man begging now. He was different in so many ways. She approached confidently, brushing his cock aside and trying to push him onto his back. Crews was having none of that as he grabbed her waist and lifted her onto his lap in one fluid motion. He paused just a moment to make sure they were lined up and commanded, "wrap your legs around me," before he lowered her onto himself in a single motion that filled her so completely she thought she might burst.

"We good?" he asked seeking her eyes before continuing.

She nodded unable to speak. His angle allowed him to look up at her and she gasped as he began to move inside her. That gasp was the opening he sought as his mouth captured hers in a long awaited kiss. She didn't want him kissing her, then she did; as his silky tongue wove its way past her lips he stole her breath and leaned back just enough to slide out of her.

The next move was hers, he was giving her control, but he was in no way lost. She could simply walk away knowing he'd bested her and he was just as good at this as she was. Or she could continue to and risk losing more than a contest of wills. "What do you want from me?" she pushed him away roughly.

"Hey, sweetheart," he shot back, "you started this."

"Why can't you just be normal?" she questioned. This sex was including far too much talking she concluded.

"You mean let you steamroll over me like you do everyone else?" She blushed furiously – he knew. Her history, her game, her MO – he knew and what's more he didn't care. "That's not gonna happen," he said confidently.

"You fucking bastard," she swore at him and anger colored her features like an angry Hindu goddess.

He lay on his back still fully dressed from the waist up, his cock twitching mightily. He put his hand on himself and wrapped his long fingers around it. "Now are we gonna do this? Or shall I just wrap this up myself?" he wondered without a hint of embarrassment.

She pounced on him like a starving lion on a fresh antelope, practically vaulting onto the bed. "You think you're so fucking smart," she threatened.

"Not smart," he grinned, "just male – all male. That's what you want isn't it?"

The only way to shut him up seemed to be to kiss him, so she reached for his pale cracked lips, which were surprisingly soft and smooth. But sensing her move he leaned back her taking her entire body with him. She lay completely atop him and her again thrust his hands into her hair and kissed her with fierceness she hadn't known ever.

He was not angry, not abusive, but his passion was completely unbridled, without limit. She was incredibly aroused, moist, hot and sweating in anticipation of what promised to be a wild ride. His hands left her hair, caressing her back and settling on her buttocks. He slid her up the length of his torso until he could kiss her fully, deeply and with patience.

The pressure on his exposed member had to be great, but he again practiced considerable restraint. Her estimation of him was growing, as was her fascination with him. He ceased to be a toy or a tool, but instead grew into an interest, a hobby and over time it consumed her – it consumed them both.

When she finally had had enough of him kissing and stroking her, she rose onto her knees and straddled his waist. Again she did not speak, but this time he had her eyes to watch. His hands rested lightly on her waist, but he made no move to reseat her. She swept her hair aside and bent low to put her mouth next to his ear.

"Pay attention. See if you can keep up," she taunted and as she eased back she rested against his throbbing cock. The sharp intake of his breath let her know she had his full attention. "This is why I get to drive," she descended on him. She took his hands from her waist and placed them on her breasts and then arched her back and began to rock and sway to music she alone heard.

He grew impatience of simply being the rod she impaled herself on to pleasure herself although the sensation was not unpleasant. He wanted her to be with him, not some guy, any guy. He reached behind her and unclasped her bra strap. His long arms drew the silken garment over her arms exposed her chest to him entirely. For a moment he just marveled at the look of her, then his hands returned to cover her breasts as she rode him mercilessly.

He hissed as she sat up suddenly, pulling away from him nearly to slipping from opening. She gave him a commanding look, a dare, a caution, which he blew right past as he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her to him.

His mouth latched onto one of her breasts and his swirled his tongue around it deftly reversing direction all the while easing her back toward his lower member. She sighed as he released the suction on her nipple and a surprise "oh" was painted on her lips as he pierced her yet again and his hands on her hips returned them to the business of their combined rhythm.

Her eyes remained on his in a battle of wills, a testament of strengths. His hips bucked against her driving deeper and deeper against her moist darkness. She was more open than he ever knew her to be any other time; her face was expressive and flushed and her eyes were nearly black, but wide and open. He held her in place with one hand and drove the other between them to touch her bringing her to orgasm. As it ripped through her without warning and she appeared happy and sad at the same time.

To Dani, somehow this joy, this release, meant she'd lost some internal battle that he didn't care to fight. To him, it was the most complete sexual experience he'd had since Jennifer and it was with a woman he was pretty sure hated him. He wanted to find a way to let her win and enjoy herself, but he felt that concept was foreign to her.

The way her bridesmaids described Anna "always having to go further, party harder, punish herself, flickered in the back of his mind. _Was Dani punishing herself with him? Was she trying to punish him? And why?_ He wondered and it fascinated him in a way nothing else of this world had been able to. It was as if he was in this world, but not of it – except for her. She was his connection.


	3. Chapter 3  Let Her Go

**Everything is Connected (Unintentionally Always)**

**Let Her Go**

Round three occurred as they were really getting to know each other as partners. She joked with him for the first time with her comment about going to space. Her wry comment retort about being "in a box down here for twelve years" when he mentioned going to space let him know any honeymoon period when they danced around each other's feelings was over – if there was ever in fact a honeymoon for them at all.

While she listened to the Fire Chief describe the danger, the precariousness of the car's lie, he stepped of the hill into the abyss and not to be outdone she joined him. He didn't fear death or what followed; he'd already been through hell and come out the other side. He was no longer the same man, but he lived.

To Dani, life was still a contest, of who was tougher, who was stronger, and who was more dominant. He knew; life had already tested him. His time inside taught him that he was both physically strong as well as mentally tough. Zen had given him the spiritual component, but he still wrestled with that part. She was desperately trying to prove she was tougher, stronger, and more dominant than him. And even though he knew he was the stronger of the two he rose to her sexual challenge – part of him couldn't help it. Thousands of years of genetic instinct screamed at him "impress the girl." He saw it; he knew it and he still couldn't help it.

It was one of the reasons he chased Manny Umaga through streets, alleys and houses until 530 lbs Samoan slammed him against a wall and stuck a knife to his throat. Crews could have shot him, he should have shot him, but he was determined to beat this thug at his own game.

Knives were something Crews knew about. Reese respected that, but he learned that only later. She backed him at her own professional peril, when she shouldn't have. She lied for him and that was when it dawned on him – he'd earned her respect. Still she made him give her the knife. She softened the punishment, by teasing him about prison and he became lost in her smile. The way she smiled at him made his chest hurt.

Then Constance showed up and Charlie was about as uncomfortable as a man can get. Flummoxed to the point of being unable to speak. Both women referring to him as "Charlie" in speech to the other; it appeared friendly, polite and civil, but it wasn't. It was fangs and claws and smiles instead of dark looks and growls. When Dani left, he felt loss and he got the distinct impression he'd pay for his relationship with the attractive DA in four-inch heels later. It was punishment he looked forward to.

The rest of that case he tried everything he could to get Reese to take a swing at him (metaphorically). She was catlike in her indifference and he found he preferred outright hate to indifference. He parroted her words driving her to snap at him, but something between them shifted the moment Constance intimated ownership over him. Dani wanted to compete for his attention, but refused to on principle. She'd win if she tried, but she made a point not to try. It vexed him.

On a day when he could no longer tolerate her polite disdain, he asked for her anger.

"Is this about her?" he inquired pointedly.

"Who?" she deflected.

"You know who," he warned. "I'm not with her. She's married and that's something I just won't do."

"How nice for you," she shot back a blinding bolt of sarcasm.

"I want to be with you," he risked.

"Don't," she threatened.

He couldn't help it; he grabbed her roughly and kissed her hard. She bit his lip and he tasted his own blood. He recoiled and touched his lip. In seconds she was on him again, peeling his clothes off in haste. Her hot mouth touching him in places she'd never dared before. He pushed her into a corner and urged her to slow down. She shook her head violently and he clasped his hands to either side of her face and forced her to look at him. "I want to be with you," he repeated.

She looked like she was in pain as she asked, "why?"

"You know why. You don't need me to tell you," he promised. He bent to kiss her and it was slowly, sweetly and thoroughly. She let him set the pace, a first for them. He slowed things down. His touch alternated between light caresses and firm possessive holds - all the while driving her mad. Just as she'd start to become uncomfortable with his level of control he'd release her and move to feather light touches of her thighs and her back.

Her intended frantic fusing in the corner, turned instead into a fascinating and heated make-out session. He marked her with purple bruises she hadn't born since high school. It felt so good to be desired in the way that he desired her. He had taken a stitch of clothes off her and he was driving her insane. She'd totally lost control of what was happening with her partner. Far from controlling him, he had her spinning and dizzy, but he didn't count on it. And for appearances sake he deferred to her on all things work related. It worked for them – for awhile.

* * *

><p>His style was definitely untraditional. He pushed and prodded and probed until the man finally slapped him. He pronounced it a "one handed clap." Crews forced everyone to look where they didn't want to go; it wasn't just her. Part of her understood what he said, the man's wife wasn't dead; she was still dying. Until Peter told them what really happened, she would always be stuck somewhere between dead and dying – in limbo.<p>

In other ways, he was just like any other man. The sleek black Oldsmobile Cutlass in Buscando Maldito's garage reduced him to a near slack-jawed drooling idiot but when the man offered to airbrush her on the hood of his car, Crews pushed back. He forced the tattooed man to acknowledge she was a cop, not just a beautiful woman. They ribbed him about it, but he held firm. He knew he was a man, she knew he was a man and now Buscando and his crew knew that Crews was "the man." Charlie Crews didn't need a posse; he had her.

When they brought Manny Umaga in, with his eager confession on tape, courtesy of Maldito, they were high on success. There was an obligatory celebratory sex session. They could have just had drinks but she didn't drink – officially. Instead on their way out after a long night, she'd pushed him into an alcove in the dark quiet of the parking garage. The cars around theirs left hours ago. They were alone. He eagerly pinned her to the nearest concrete pillar and kissed her breathless. He liked kissing and he was good at it.

She liked fucking and it was her forte. She stripped the belt off his trouser and it made a whizzing sound due to the speed she used to draw it through the loops. He drew back and arched an eyebrow. If it had been a bullwhip she'd have been happier. There was no reason for the gesture. She didn't need the belt off, just unbuckled, but she was giddy from the arrest and it made her a little crazy.

He wordlessly took the belt from her and looped it into a makeshift restraint. He placed it around both her wrists and then pulled them over her head. He watched her intently for some indication of discomfort. If he wanted to do kinky, she could go there. She smiled darkly and all her teeth showed. He eased the belt off her wrists and dropped it to the ground.

"No?" she wondered aloud. "Scared?" she toyed with him. "Is this a prison thing?"

"I like your hands on me," he told her flatly holding her eyes.

"Oh…you do?" she questioned her quick hands buttoned and unzipped his trousers. He moaned softly as her hands slid into his pants. She gripped his buttocks and pulled him towards her. "Do you like that?"

He braced his elbows above her on the concrete pillar and his eyes were closed. He nodded mutely. As she reached into his briefs to fondle him, his hissed and pressed her into the wall. He stumbled hard as she had seized (quite literally) all the initiative. He bit his lip and blood filled his taste buds. He took a deep ragged breath and pushed back away from her hot little hands.

Disappointment played across her flushed face, until his hands reached for the front of her shirt. She looked down, expecting him to fumble with the buttons in his current predicament. He didn't. He grabbed the shirt and pulled hard, buttons flew everywhere. As her disappointment became shock, his hands took advantage of her surprise, to unclasp her bra and free her breasts. Her breasts were heavy in his hands and then he bent to take one in his mouth. She squirmed in pleasure and became aware of a car door slamming. They were entirely exposed.

Her heart raced. "Crews," she hissed in warning, but he did not stop his deliberate and frenzied advance. He simply pulled her around the corner and then lifted her up and slammed her into the dark wall. His hands kept her head from making contact, but her back hit the wall with enough force for stun her. She was still breathless when he kissed her hard. Footsteps retreated and she pushed him away.

"I can't breathe," she complained. "We could get caught," she advised him of something he already knew.

"Relax," he chuckled. "Twelve years of prison gives you a real good feel for how close people are," he explained against her throat. "We're fine," he continue to attack her throat with one hand on her exposed breast.

There was something exciting about sex in a public area that always made Dani laugh. She tried not to, but failed.

He raised his head; his red hair was mussed and his freckled face flushed. "If that's your reaction, I'm not doing this right," he deadpanned.

She snorted a short laugh trying to prevent a full-on attack of laughter. "Maybe I'm just not taking you seriously," she grinned, "because we can't really get where we need to be dressed like this." Her pants were still on.

"Well, the shirt…" he gestured. "I'll pay for it," he offered.

"Oh, you're gonna pay for it," she taunted. She held her shirt closed as they walked to their respective cars. His pants were zipped and buttoned, but his belt was nowhere to be found.

"How many shirts have you had to buy your little DA friend?" she pressed lightly.

He stopped, pivoting on the balls of his feet. His expensive loafers dug into the asphalt and she could hear every scrape. He walked to her and then pointedly answered, "none." He stared at her intently, "in fact – until tonight, I've never done that before, to any shirt, on any woman."

Without missing a beat, she deadpanned, "men more your thing?"

Another prison joke, then her door shut and engine sparked to life.

She left before she ended up taking him home. Goofy bastard was always ready to go, even when she let her joy over closing that case lead her to try and jump him in the parking garage. _Jesus_, she thought. _If I take him home, we'll never leave_. He was just supposed to be this stupid new guy, but he was turning out to be more fun than she'd had in a long time.

_Honeymoon period was definitely over_, he thought chuckling. He looked around for his missing belt and then wrote it off entirely. Reese was nothing like what she'd seemed. She had a wry, biting wit, a sharp sense of humor and she was funnier than people thought. She was also hotter than people thought, Charlie thought that might be impossible, but it was true. All the way home, he tried to imagine a time when he'd be willing to let her go.


	4. Chapter 4  What They Saw

**Everything is Connected (Unintentionally Always)**

**What They Saw**

The ground breaking, landmark case in which she first admitted they were partners.

Freudian slip or not, she was protective, even angry with Holt Easley for throwing toasters at him. She slammed the poor little fellow into a tree with far more vigor than was necessary. Her display of bravado was only partially responsible for her slip of the tongue. The other reason was that they were together when the call came in. He was tracing the lines of her naked body with his finger first, then his tongue when their cells rang, first hers – then his. If the Department GPS tracked them, they were toast. She needed a shower before she could respond. He'd worked her into a lather before the call and was still not yet ready to satisfy himself. Her thighs ached from the contraction of muscles in her pelvic belly. She'd found far more interesting uses for his mouth that talking or reciting Zen anecdotes. He was cunning oral artist.

He washed his face in cold water and slid into his trousers announcing he'd meet her there. She stopped him at the door with her hand wrapped around his tie to wring one last languorous kiss from him. He wove his hands through her hair, a favorite haunt of his to pull her to him. He always seemed to draw breath from her and leave her lightheaded and wanting more. She tried not to lean after him but failed.

Forty minutes later they were dressed in their respective costumes playing their parts over the body of a dead man. His steadfast insistence at Easley's innocence made her question her assumptions and she knew she'd let him get too close, but she also knew her realization was too late. She pawned Easley off on him to babysit to provide a buffer between them. If he was babysitting Easley, he couldn't be between her legs every night could he now?

Charlie found that he missed her. He sat on the hardwood floor as Ted pitched some new bar idea and Easley, the functional alcoholic, slung snide comments, but Charlie wasn't there. He was with Reese, his hands in her hair, his tongue licking sweat from her body. Sure there were other girls; he was certain she was with other men, but she was the one he wanted. She was the yardstick for everyone else. Constance teased and tantalized, but he was no longer locked in that singular long moment they'd shared - the one that had lasted the four years of his appeal. Now he was with Reese – except that he wasn't with Reese - and he wanted to be.

* * *

><p>The night Easley disappeared, leaving a mess on the hardwood floor; Charlie was almost relieved; he could pick up where they left off. His delicate fingers longed to probe her soft skin. He wanted to elicit moans from his tight young partner. She burned like a fire even in the darkest of nights. She was alive and she intrigued him. She rejected him all day; yet at night her alter ego consumed his breath and stole parts of his very soul. She answered on the first ring, "Did you ditch the vagrant?"<p>

"Didn't have to. He left me," he explained. "Vanished into thin air," he sounded sad about it although he wasn't.

"Don't worry," she quipped caustically, "men do it to me all the time."

"I won't," he promised and meant it.

She wouldn't ask him so he offered, "Are you at home?"

"No," she laughed. "I'm… Let's just say I'm making sure I won't be bored tonight." Her appetite was strong and he wanted to be her prey. "Good night Crews," she said hanging up abruptly.

She was determined to get him out of her system. He was becoming a habit, an addiction. She wanted – no - she needed – to move on. She was in one of her usual haunts; a non-descript upscale bar, heavy bass thrummed through her like a pulse. This was a target rich environment. She just needed to pick one up and leave. After that it all went according to plan, there was quick, meaningless coupling, usually unsatisfying, then she dozed for a few hours and fled in the predawn hours never to know her tool's name. She didn't need it.

She wavered uneasily; usually picking one wasn't this hard. She surveyed the pack of gazelles looking for a weak easy mark. Then a flash of red caught her eye and for a moment she hoped it was him. The man turned – it wasn't him and she felt a pang of disappointment. She gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts, _damn him!_

"Hey baby," a blonde with green eyes and hair like a Ken doll smiled at her, "looking for someone in particular? Cause I can be whatever you like…" he teased brazenly.

"Buy me a drink," she commanded. "Double scotch, neat."

"Yeah, sure thing baby," he grinned and the whiteness of his teeth was false. Everything about him was wrong, but he was there and he was eager – he'd do. He pressed through the crowd of people towards the bar. This was taking too long. She needed to be in bed with someone by now.

Crews watched the blonde man approach and smile. He saw the interaction as the pretty man offered her his throat submissively. She seemed bored and annoyed, so as the blonde man went to buy her a drink, he approached her from behind. When his shadow covered her, he swept her hair aside and leaned in to kiss her neck. He pressed warm, smooth lips to her tender flesh and her pulse leapt to greet him.

She knew it was him the instant her hair moved. She could feel him in her space; tall, taut and warm. The scent of his aftershave arrived a moment before his lips. Her body responded automatically; in relief and greeting, her neck inclining away and offering him better access. His long arm reached around her back and cupped her breast, under her jacket. He was claiming her, taking her away from the pretty man at the bar who glanced back, waved and smiled.

He turned her and watched her black eyes glitter dangerously; she didn't want to want it to be him, except that she kinda did. "Come home with me," he demanded. It wasn't an entreaty. He wasn't trying to win or hold her affection; he already had it and he knew it.

She shook her head 'no'; all the while knowing she'd go anyway.

He sunk his hands deep into her hair and kissed her. He withdrew and simply leaned close and inhaled the complex bouquet that was her – shampoo or fading perfume with the hints of flowers, the taste of coffee on her tongue like a dessert and the flavor and essence of a smooth, smoky scotch clung to her lips where he'd kissed them. Her hands were on him without thought; they just seemed to belong there.

"I want you to come home with me," he again spoke the demand.

"I don't want to," she said coyly.

"Yes, you do," he called her bluff, "and you don't like it." His hand was in hers and the pale, blonde with the green eyes stood holding an amber drink as another man left with his girl. He drank the scotch and forgot the girl.

They made it as far as the parking lot, before his tender caresses of her hand and wrist forced her to be angry with him. She spun him against the car like a suspect. She groped him like he was being arrested, but when she got to his waist her hands sunk into his pockets and teased his manhood with their closeness. "Got anything in your pockets that'll hurt me?" she asked the standard question.

"Nooo," he laughed shaking his head. "Is there anything that can hurt you?" he asked. Part of it was a joke and part was a complex real question.

She withdrew and continued patting down his thighs. It was not a position he'd previously enjoyed. Her hands on his groin pulling hard stood him up and she spun him again. The "what are we doing here," he meant to say was stolen from his lips as she kissed him hard.

The next thing he knew they were half undressed and in the back of his car. The windows were steaming up and she was atop him in a commanding way. This woman was incredible. She was so complex and varied. He wrestled her out of her shirt as she unzipped his trousers. If she wanted it here, they'd do it here. She mumbled something against his collarbone that sounded an awful lot like his given name, which she made a point of never speaking aloud. They were a jumbled up mess of undone clothes, but all the important parts were still covered.

He drew her against him, but she rebuffed his attempts to kiss her. She was angry and determined. She bit him half a dozen times; everywhere from his neck to his shoulder and oddly, a finger. She was furious and out of control. He stopped and let her attack. After a moment, his stillness arrested her movement.

"I don't want this," she told him pain clearly painted on her face.

He wasn't sure if she meant him or the hate that fueled her attack, but he lied to make her feel better in any way he could. "I know," he leaned forward and clasped her gently to his heaving chest. "I know," he said again as he pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead.

They lie still and quiet for a moment, then he sought her face and kissed both eyelids and her nose. She froze and waited for him. He breathed against her lips and she trembled slightly in anticipation. When he actually kissed her, he could feel both her relief and her anguish. They were both in over their heads.

He had left his house needing to find her; knowing that unless and until he did he would not sleep. He wanted to find her even if it was in the arms of another man. He'd followed the GPS in her phone to the club and she'd been easy to find. He just looked for the prettiest, most exotic, yet tortured soul in the bar. She shined for him like the moon on a clear night. She'd rekindled want in him in a way he'd tried to deny, but there it was shining, clear and brilliant – she stunned him.

He took her home and they'd just slept, exhausted and dreamless for hours. When she moved to leave in the pre-dawn hours, he'd held her wrist lightly and issued the magic words that held her in place - just her given name.

For a moment he thought she'd flee like Cinderella, against the tolling of the clock, but she didn't. She didn't want to. She was tired of running, of fighting, of hiding and never belonging anywhere. Even as she lay back down, even as his hand snaked across her naked belly to draw her against him, even as his nose was buried in the hair at the base of her spine, he felt the struggle leave her. Peace followed.

Surrender was hard for her, but she needed it and she needed him.


	5. Chapter 5 The Fallen Woman

**Everything is Connected **

**The Fallen Woman**

She wondered aloud about his tattoos in the car. She said she didn't want to know, didn't want to see; but she did and it was a burning desire she'd never give voice to. In all the times they'd been together, she'd never seen any tattoos on his pale flesh. A multitude of scars littered his chest, shoulders and abdomen, but no dark marks, no patterns, nothing that would qualify as art inked on his fair flesh.

The remainder of the trip, she thought about him and where his tattoos hid.

It would stand to reason that if he didn't choose to get them, if he were held down and they were forcibly applied to him, they'd be on his back. She'd never seen his back, not in all their many times together. He'd always faced her, looking into her eyes – religiously. She thought it was because of the sex; the sexual position and perhaps his desire to connect, but perhaps it had nothing to do with sex at all.

Maybe it was because he didn't want her to see them – his tattoos. Maybe he was hiding from her just as she hid from him. He didn't want her to know. To know that he'd been held down and lead or rust or dirt imbedded in his freckled back. Because to know that meant she would know other things, dark things that happened to men in prison whose backs were turned. To know this, she would know that once he had not been the strongest and it was a fragility that haunted him one he was ashamed of or embarrassed about. Perhaps it was like her many weaknesses, one he simply wished to forget.

When she looked back at him, it was with new found wonder and awe. He couldn't known that her respect for him increased in those moment and it wouldn't have waned if she'd have seen his tattoos, but that time was past. Their time together would come to an end with the arrest and interrogation of Roman Nevikov. She couldn't know that then – just as she could not know that Roman would bring them full circle in the future that he didn't believe in.

* * *

><p>He'd remember it forever, the instant it all became clear for him. The moment he knew she was a need he'd never lose, a want he'd never tire of and a person for whom he'd make extravagant gestures and undertake heroic quests for. His epiphany came in a small ten by twelve foot room that usually made him nervous. It was too much like his cell.<p>

In this room, he rarely sat, preferring the freedom of standing and the light at the window to remind him that he really could actually leave anytime he wanted. She sensed that about him and usually took the lead – and the seat – leaving him the light and an unobstructed path to the door. At least he thought she sensed that. Like everything thing else it was something they never spoke about – leaving each to decide their own interpretation of what those choices and positions meant – a lot like their sex.

Roman first poked at Crews, but nothing got to Crews. He'd heard it all and seen it all before. Everyone seemed to know Crews was in prison. Arthur Tins went there on their very first time in this 10' x 12' box. It was old news by the time Roman used it. Charlie brushed it off like flakes of ash that fell on his suit. Then Roman's eyes shifted, raking over her like she was standing naked before him. Roman coveted her, wanted to possess her for himself. She knew it – she felt it. Then she felt Crews tense across the room in response. His gaze was not at the Russian, but at her – he felt it too. His response was visceral and raw.

As Roman began to speak the words, to talk to the demon inside her, to coax it out into the light, she wriggled and squirmed – itchy inside just as he'd said. Crews rippled with heat and energy – protection, possession, rage, jealousy, whatever it was – she felt it – everyone in that room did. He slammed his hand down on the table when what he really wanted to do with put those hands on Roman. Roman chuckled, he knew. He'd pushed her buttons and through her got to him – Charlie Crews, the imperturbable man.

Roman shook her loose of her illusion. This was a dangerous, almost psychotic game she and Crews were playing. They were seriously damaged people, fractured, flawed, broken but still hanging on. Charlie Crews knew too much about her demon for her liking. Roman took the crystal couple and dropped them from a height, just like he had Lena. They shattered into a million tiny splinters of very sharp glass. She had become the weakness – in a man who had none. It had to end.

In the car he tried to tell her that he understood, but she knew it was over. She knew she had to stop it, stop them - before one or both of them seriously damaged the other. Her loss of faith occurred young, became more profound later, but her loss of confidence in the possibility of happiness, of belonging, occurred then, in that moment, in that car. It felt like a new kind of death.

He tried to coax something from her as light and air flowed through the billowing drapes of an empty hotel room. They were together, but apart. She looked out the window to the pavement below. Lena met her death here – thrown from the window for the great sin of having hope. It was her sin now too. They sat on the bed and for once she didn't have to resist the impulse of jumping him – it just wasn't there. Her knees wobbled in and out and he didn't repeat his attempt.

Later, when the FBI fucked them both by taking Roman away, she showed anger - not just at the power play by the feds, but also at the hole in her chest left by the puzzling man she'd pushed away. He uncharacteristically said nothing; he was still stuck in stunned. Instead he remained quiet, wondering if you really could steal nothing and if they just had.

* * *

><p><em>Ever wonder if it was one of them who set you up?<em>

_You should ask your partner about the Bank of Los Angeles robbery…you should ask your partner what happened to all that money… _When Roman first said it, he knew the man was trying to exploit his fears. But then Dani pushed him away.

He stared at her across their conjoined desks. She was focused on the work. He was focused on her. _Could Roman have meant her?_ She was just a little girl when that happened. Bank of LA was before even Charlie's time on the force. His vision shifted and refocused to what lay beyond her; Officer Bobby Stark, his first partner. _Did Roman mean Stark? He had to didn't he? _Or…Roman could just be fucking with him.

_Suspicion in the mind makes ghosts in the dark. _He'd learned lessons like this the hard way. The first six months inside he'd heard whispers everywhere - every footfall, every hushed voice made him shudder. He knew fear, real fear, for the first time in his life. He recalled the night sweats, the hours of lying in his bunk wide awake, the times his heart was in his throat and he could feel it pounding fiercely in his chest.

After the first few attacks, they'd put him in isolation; solitary confinement and then he knew true fear. The ultimate punishment, deprivation of human contact, for two years – he'd nearly gone mad. He welcomed death and asked to return to general population and from then on he mastered his fears. He learned to sense another in his space, feel shadows before they arrived, he became a patchwork of stitches and scars, but he survived. Now…he wondered why?

He was no closer to finding out who framed him or why. The one person he seemed to connect with was determined to push him away. _Was it because she was part of something darker than he'd imagined?_ Uneasiness rested in his chest, whether it was because he missed her or if it was just a visit from his old friend fear was unclear. Either way she was light years away from him now, sitting just across his desk, three feet and an eternity away.


	6. Chapter 6 Powerless

**Everything is Connected **

**Powerless**

Ordinarily, she'd have just fucked Rick Larson and not bothered to learn his last name, but something about him standing up there at the podium with a shit eating grin and lying to people who really were trying - just pissed her off. She was there because she had to be, the Department foisted it upon her, penance for her many sins. The Catholic girl she used to be knew she deserved it; part of her even welcomed it. But he was a fraud that put her pretending to shame.

She wouldn't tell him her full name or give him her number. Something in her rebelled against him. He was too smooth, too finessed a liar – too good at pretending, too much like her. "I'm a friend of Bill's," she'd said. All that really meant was "I'm an alcoholic." She didn't know how people who really were friends of a man named Bill coped. Poorly, she surmised.

Later when Crews asked her about it, she'd shared; something she never did with anyone but him. Crews wasn't concerned about Rick; he was concerned about her. He'd called her on it; she shrugged it off. _Listen to the words I am actually saying_, she growled at her partner. But he didn't care about Rick; he cared about her - being in a bar, being around people who drank. She refocused him throwing up walls she'd used for years, sealing herself off from his tenderness and those damnable blue eyes that probed hers while pretending to puzzle over a plum.

He let her have her distance, but not her illusions. No matter how hot their sex had been neither of them was the sort that let it effect work. He thought her hunch was thin and he told her so. His stock rose another point in her estimation; he didn't want in her pants badly enough to lie about what was important. He knew they were using each other and perhaps she'd reached her limit, he was still finding his - after so much time away.

Hours and hours of off duty time rolled by as she was consumed by her furious pursuit for that single 911 call that proved she was right; that her instincts were solid. She recognized another predator when she saw one - in the way the leopard and the lion sense one another in the dark. When she played the 911 call for Crews, she watched his eyes widen in surprise and then narrow in respect. _Yes, trust those instincts,_ her demon counseled.

Once convinced, Crews was a willing accomplice. In fact it was his impassioned plea that got Nancy from victim to complainant and when they "perp walked" Rick through the squad bay – it was a nice moment for both women. Dani felt powerful and her illusion made her vulnerable. When Larson made bail, Dani had absolutely no idea. She didn't know she was in danger. She was entirely preoccupied with burning off her post arrest high some way other than jumping her partner's bones. She'd sworn off him, but he was hard to quit, hard to forget.

She'd skipped her AA meeting, no longer welcome at Lou's events. Those people valued privacy even at the risk of covering for a punisher like Larson. She'd have to find a new place, but for now her therapy was in the gym. She worked out hard, pushing herself, punishing her muscles with repetitive sets on several machines, then building with the heaviness of free weights, followed by the tight, curling ache of too many sit-ups. She retired to the sauna, baking in the heat as sweat rolled off her tanned skin and she released the energy she'd been holding - the internal fire she stoked continuously. She'd taken a cold shower, redressed and arrived home exhausted.

What awaited her was not a superb menu of options. Maybe a microwave dinner, a few hours of mindless TV and a night alone in her cold impersonal apartment, but she was doing it rather than risk what came from continuing this thing with Crews – whatever it was they were doing. He hadn't been odd, which was the usual way men reacted to her cutting them off. They always acted guilty and strange. Crews was already strange, but he didn't act guilty – so far as he knew he hadn't done anything except care about her, which was unforgivable in her book.

Checking the freezer for TV dinners, she found herself staring at a bottle of vodka – one she hadn't put there. Usually, buying and stashing liquor was something she recalled; it was the drinking and later parts that were fuzzy. She glanced back at her pistol and the empty leather holster mocked her. The fear was there before the mask appeared holding the gun. His grin only reinforced the feeling in the pit of her stomach when she first saw the dragon on the vodka label. _Which was worse? To be afraid of something? Or to be afraid of nothing? Was it more important to fear what others could do to you? Or what you could do to yourself?_

When Rick removed the mask and sat her at her tiny, impersonal dining room table forcing her to drink the cold liquid that burned, she could only think about why men found her so compelling. _Why did men want to know her?_ _What made them think that was even possible? She didn't know herself so how could anyone else know her? _She wondered this the entire time she was drinking the molten liquid fire that burned down her throat. Her eyes teared, but she didn't bother to wipe them away. They left salty streaks down her face, ones that Crews would have kissed away whispering "I know," softly in her ear.

In that moment, when he sprang unbidden to her mind, she could feel the tickle of his breath on her earlobe, the smoothness of his lips on her cheek and feel his hands sunk deep in her dark locks as he took her breath away. In her despair, she reached for the instrument that would summon him to her. She pressed the number 1 on her speed dial. Dialing Charlie Crews – first in her heart, the only one who'd made it there in a very long time. She wanted him, so he came, just as she knew he would. She could hear him now just outside her door talking and saying nothing.

Rick didn't know you couldn't steal nothing, just like you couldn't say nothing – there was always something beneath the nothing. She grasped it in her alcoholic haze for just a moment before Crews and Stark kicked her door in. There was a single shot and then Crews was there. His warm palm closed over hers and took the pistol from her. Even through the haze she could see the blue of his eyes, the one that matched the blue of his shirt. She wanted to go there into that azure blue and drift like she was in a warm ocean, but instead she retreated to the bathroom. She forced the liquor out of her system, until her throat and eyes burned, but it wasn't enough to make him fade.

Crews remained; guarding her door and then he was there on her arm holding her upright. She couldn't help smiling at him through her tears and saying inane things. He was silent and a tight smile played across his features. He was guarding the gate between work and play that they so religiously observed. He stared after her, until they forced her to lie down, breaking their connection. His eyes held hers and they soothed her. Rage behind them for this man who'd threatened her percolated. Rick would get to the station, but it would be a long and interesting ride for the man.

* * *

><p>Hours later his phone rang again and he answered it quietly as though he'd been waiting for her call. "Hey," he said smiling, she could hear it in his voice. It wasn't a victory smile; it was an "I'm happy you're okay and felt you could call me," kind of smile.<p>

"Come get me," she'd demanded.

He didn't try to talk her out of it. He didn't tell her to stay or threaten to report her to Lieutenant Davis. He'd simply said, "I'll be there in ten. Do you need clothes?"

She had no idea, she was barely conscious. She'd drunk enough to anesthetize two men twice her size and despite charcoal and the stomach pump, she was still quite drunk. Her reply was a single heartbreaking hiccup.

"I'll bring clothes," he told her.

Twenty minutes later, he stalked the darkened hallways of the hospital like a knight on a quest. He'd found her loitering near the doorway to her room anxious to escape. He slipped the sweatshirt over her head and clasped her hand in his. Together they made their cautious escape down gleaming linoleum floors until the hissing sound of automatic doors signaled the parking garage. He turned and looked at her in question, she nodded and he swept her up in his arms. His long sure strides carried them to his waiting car.

The ride home – to his home – was quiet and dark. She felt cold, but safe. He pulled to a stop in front of a massive stucco fronted mansion lit like a Christmas tree. She recoiled from the light and he whispered that she should stay in the car. As she watched, one by one the lights went out. When he reappeared, the world was in shadow once again. She stood and wobbled; once again she was light in his arms.

His bed was massive, soft and luxurious. He was warm, comforting and fit her in all the right places. Silent tears fell on his chest as her body released them without her assent. He mumbled forgotten platitudes and comforts into her hair and hugged her tightly.

She awoke in the late morning; he was awake, but remained still and silent so she would not be disturbed. She'd never woke up this late in a man's home – not since she could remember. His hands moved lightly down her back, soothing, not sexual. He was stroking her like you would the head of a sick child. His tenderness annoyed her.

"Are you okay?" he asked his voice huskier than she remembered.

"Are you?" she countered caustically.

He eyed her knowingly and chuckled. "No, but then you knew that," he said politely as though it was saying good morning.

She tried to glare and failed miserably. She chalked it up to a hangover and not the lack of seriousness and feeling.

"I think you're not okay and it scares the shit out of you to admit it," he offered. "But you don't have to be okay, it's alright to be broken. We all are in some way."

She said nothing to confirm or deny his statement.

"Do you want breakfast or lunch?" he changed subjects fluidly.

"I want to take a shower, go home and never see you again," she commented.

"I can help with the first two, but that last one is a tall order," he smiled blithely, "and… you don't mean it," he tempted.

"What if I do?" she countered. "What if this is too much? Too soon? Not good for either of us?"

"I'm a big boy," he replied. "I can make up my own mind about what I want and what's good for me."

"Does it matter to you what I want?"

"Hey, you started this," he pointed out.

"So I can end it," she shot back.

"That what you want?" he asked quietly with his eyes downcast. "If it is…then why'd you call me? Last night? You - called me – twice."

"I know," she growled through gritted teeth. She flung the coverlet off herself and rose from the bed. She didn't address the rest of his comment, she didn't know the answer to his question and she didn't want him to. He was so very good at making her feel safe.

"Take your shower," he changed tacks. "I'll take you home, fix your door and we'll deal with the rest of this later," he directed. He was in charge, in command, in control and she did as she was told. She resented the hell out of it.

She slammed his car door and pouted while he fixed her front door. She sat in mute abject opposition, but could not summon a single cogent argument to his assertion. He got her, he accepted and understood her and that pissed her off. She wasn't okay, neither was he, but together? She didn't want to think about them together and yet she just had. She didn't say thanks when he left. She sat in her quiet apartment as reality set in like a wet cold she could feel deep in her bones.

_She'd gotten in trouble and whom did she call for help?_

The man she said she didn't want.

_She wanted out of the hospital and whom did she call?_

The man she said she didn't want.

_She'd gone home and slept all night with whom?_

The man she said she didn't want.

She wanted him all right. He knew it; she knew it and it was killing her.


	7. Chapter 7 A Civil War

**Everything is Connected **

**A Civil War**

This time the case involved two dead Persian kids with oil poured all over them and "go home" written over their bodies in the frozen foods section of a "stop and rob" in an immigrant heavy part of town. Good kids caught in bad circumstance and all they got for their trouble was dead. Another boy was missing and that meant they went all out, all night – the whole squad - a manhunt. It was win or go home; until they got the boy back alive or his body lay on a slab in the morgue.

The lead detectives were still dancing around each other stinging from their last personal exchange. It figured they'd have to pull an all-nighter together. The kind of case where reality recedes from a combination of many hours that merge into days and lack of sleep makes the world seem surreal. The kind of place where Charlie Crews would feel completely at home – the white rabbit of Wonderland in his Armani suit.

Her conversation in Farsi was a revelation to him. She'd hidden her ancestry. Her father made it seem as though it was something to be ashamed of. But Crews seemed impressed rather than repelled by it. He got stranger the longer she knew him. Everyone else believed all Arabs or Persians were terrorists and Charlie Crews believed they were novel, even interesting. It figures he would.

Of course, he was in prison for 9/11 so maybe he wasn't as affected by the country's fear as everyone else, but it was still something she felt. People assumed she was Hispanic and she let them – it was easier. She was still thinking about the strangeness of her partner's response when he took them to previously uncharted waters.

"Maybe life is a dream and we wake up when we die," he mused in the car on what seemed to be day three of the longest night of her life.

_Yeah, sure,_ her mind answered, _because my life up to now has been such a cakewalk. God's gifts to me thus far are scotch, blow and Charlie Crews - lovely._ She'd better hope he was wrong.

He took her snorted laugh as a commentary on his initial comment and smiled. Her smiles had become something of a holy grail to him lately. She was closed to him in a way that perplexed and befuddled him, but he returned to what he knew – the partner, not the woman.

The Department rumor mill in the ladies locker room described him as "suave" with a smattering of "handsome" thrown in. Her response when looking at him right now? _Goofy, with a smattering of "I hate the way he looks at Mary Ann Farmer" thrown in for good measure. _ Dani Reese did not do jealous, but she was hovering very close to that line; too close for her liking, it grated on her like the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

Still when Crews remarked that he respected all the woman had achieved, Dani grumbled. It served Farmer right that Jeffery, her surf rat son, was hell bent on punishing both Farmer and her Persian drug-dealing lover. In the end everyone went to jail, except poor tortured Jeffery, whom SWAT put a bullet in. Jeffery had it coming though – he was a sadistic freak.

At the end of things, Crews sat on the curb with the woman he "respected" before she was hauled off in handcuffs and Dani offered him a paltry cup of coffee – as if their night had not been filled with a dozen such cups. Charlie took it and her hand and an uneasy truce settled over them.

When she dropped him at his house, the sun was already high in the sky and they were each headed for their respective beds, too tired for any extracurricular activity. She didn't want any more drama, nor did he. But when he leaned, she didn't move away. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and said "good night, Dani," in the bright sunlight of midday.

She missed him before she got home. He only called her Dani when they were alone, never at work. He was good at that; separating work from play – she wasn't. Her little flirtation with the green-eyed monster showed her that. He was too close; he was never supposed to mean this much. _Hell…he was never supposed to mean anything._

* * *

><p>He stood at his kitchen window with his hand playing in the strong sunlight. He drank orange juice and wondered how much better his pale hand would look against her tanned skin. She was an itch that never got enough scratching. Even poor bedraggled Ted noticed how he'd winnowed himself off the garden-variety girls. His taste ran to the Middle Eastern these days – a certain closeted half Persian girl who spoke a strange language fluently. Even harsh guttural words sounded lovely off her tongue.<p>

He shrugged and collapsed into his big bed alone. He'd dream of her saying unintelligible things in a foreign tongue as his hand roved over her body in exaltation and supplication. She was the last thing he thought of before sleep took him and he'd bet she'd be the first conscious image in it when he woke.


	8. Chapter 8 Farthingale

**Everything is Connected**

**Farthingale**

Half a man with two wives killed with an exploding stove…_and they thought they had problems_. This guy was married to two entirely different women and when I say different, I mean as divergent a set of paths there ever were. Dani was so lost within that thought she wondered aloud if everyone lived two lives.

"Only two?" was his knowing reply.

She twisted to look at him. "How many lives do you have?"

"Still figuring that out," he smiled blithely at her.

She hated that smile on him and she hated when he used it on her. It screamed '_I'm lying_' to her in a way that nothing else did. She scowled in return – at least her expression was honest. At work she was still sullen and withdrawn, angry at the world, in general and him, in particular.

Outside of work they'd become something of a routine. Unable to let go of their mutual attractions entirely and despite their collective but unspoken and unacknowledged misgivings, they'd resumed their dangerous liaison. Their sexual appetites were even matched and he seemed able to stimulate her in ways other men could not. She wouldn't say she cared about him and he wouldn't admit to caring about her. What had begun as a psychology experiment in manipulation had become something else entirely.

She was real to him in a way that no one else was. Her fury and her wildness touched him in a place he thought was dead. Her emotions, even her anger, but especially her hunger, were so raw and real he couldn't help himself despite knowing that she'd hurt him, that she wanted to hurt him and that they'd burn each other badly. He kept coming back for more and the punishment she meted out was something he looked forward to. And then there were other times…. nights when he'd wake her from a deep sleep with soft kisses and she was gentle and tender. Those couplings he cherished like miracles.

Some mornings he'd examine himself in the mirror, after wiping the steam free, to find a mixed bag of scars, welts, scratches, bruises and her teeth marks. He's seen a Discovery channel show once about lions mating and it made him think instantly of her – of them. Their fierce coupling no less marked her. She bore bluish marks from his fingertips in the tender white skin under her arms where he gripped her to tightly at times and the dusky purple hickeys at her shoulder and neck – emblems of his attachment. And then there were other times….in the predawn hours when his lips softly touched her shoulder and her eyelid, when his touch was so feather light she thought it was dreamt, until he kissed her. There was no mistaking his kiss, a swirling of tongues, mixing of breathes, a heady mixture that stole the fight from her.

They were both far too fragile to admit feeling anything beyond physical release, but they trusted each other, felt safe enough to rest, to relax. It was a rare magical component they lacked with any other partners. With him, she'd slept, simply slept with a man after sex for the first time in years. Sometimes all they did was sleep. That should have been weirder than it was. Their trust was as fragile as a snowflake and as individual, but it was there – almost invisible in it's unique crystalline structure, but present and both could taste it on their tongues.

He realize she was still staring at him, bordering on a glare she pulled off better when not naked in him arms and he still hadn't answered. He elected not to answer, instead posing a question of his own. "What'd you want when you started this?"

"For you to….you know…" she gestured with her hand, annoyed at his insinuation. _Who were they kidding?_ He wasn't insinuating; he was taunting. He knew exactly what she intended – for him to fall under her spell as had many men before him. Charlie Crews seemed immune to her feminine wiles; at least it seemed that way to her. But then Crews was a conundrum; someone she could want not to want, but seemed to want despite herself. _And worst of all - he knew it._

"Obey you?" he laughed knowingly as if her internal thought pattern was appearing like a cartoon cloud over her head for him to read instead of just bouncing around within her skull. The uncanny way he read her was unnerving at times and comforting at others - as with everything else Crews managed to do both simultaneously.

"No, just act like a normal guy," she shot back annoyed at his defiance and his blatant confidence, "like everyone else, like other guys."

"I'm not like other guys," he commented meekly.

"No," she agreed but was displeased about his satisfaction with that fact. "You're not like anyone else on the planet." He smiled like she'd paid him a compliment. That was not her intent. "I don't mean that in a good way," she argued against his smile.

"No, of course not. Cause you'd never pay me a compliment…" he teased and kissed her shoulder lightly. "Not aloud anyway," he caressed her, "but I know you like me." He was so very cocky. "You like the things I do to you, the things we do to each other," he shifted so he was lying atop her. His shadow covered her.

Round two preliminaries. She moved deliberately against him. She wanted the talk to stop. Talk got too close to real for her. Sex was something she could deal with. Sex she could convince herself was meaningless, but it wasn't not for them – not anymore. No one satisfied her as fully as he did. He didn't need talk to understand what she wanted from him and gradually, she relaxed enough in his presence to allow him not to hurt her. That was her real objection to a long-term relationship and preference for one-night-stands. One night stands couldn't hurt you like a partner could. Now she knew somehow that Crews would never intentionally cause her pain, physical or emotional. At first, he'd been just as big a bastard as she was, but that eased as they felt each other out.

They both had other partners, but those people failed to measure up and eventually those trysts fell by the wayside. Fawning, preening, ditzy party girls who didn't compare to his spitfire partner failed to satisfy him. Men who were only into her for her body became less interesting and were never satisfying. He took the time and had the patience to learn what she liked. He liked to surprise and excite her. He reveled in their fierce sexual encounters, full of teeth and claws. He gave as good as he got. The both wore battle sign from their engagements, but lately that had eased. Not the ferocity, just the marking of respective territories. By unspoken agreement now, they were almost exclusive.

He found her mesmerizing and so full of life – a life that he felt absent from him. He was in the world but not of it; he was detached. It was a detachment that he cultivated so nothing and no one could hurt him. In this way, they were the same – in this way they were connected – like the Zen proverb he quoted to IAD. They could damage his body, but that which was Charlie Crews was buried under a mountain of Zen. She was his mirror image; the ice queen commanding her life from deep within a cave, hidden behind a bank of thick snow and heavy ice.

Sex was her tool and she had wanted to make him one too. Other men were either too eager to please her, which she loathed or didn't care who she was, which lately she found wanting. He was so ready to do battle with her, but there was sadness there inside him and fragility too. Each of them was protecting a tiny corner of their souls that the world had not yet desecrated.

Anger and fire were her tools; detachment and coolness were his, but together in the dark of night he shone with heat, light, energy – a type of blue fire and she with a surprising, cool blue calm reversing their daylight visage. They found each other intriguing, an interesting puzzle in a world that held little interest for them. He who was so determinedly cold could summon such fire, with her….it was impressive troubling and exciting. Each seemed to live two lives – at least two.

She was so much more than what she seemed. That he'd penetrated her deliberately constructed defenses troubled her, but not so much so that she'd stop. He was her new addiction. She craved him; his long taut body, his pale form that shone ethereal light even on the darkest night; his brassy hair that seemed to capture the light and hold it close; his eyes that were that indescribable color – not blue, not green, yet sometimes blue and sometimes green. His eyes were like Crews himself, capable of being several colors at once.

Now when he moved to kiss her, she did not resist. He knew somehow the day she began kissing him was the day they'd have achieved balance, parity and while he craved it – he also feared it. He wondered if once the magical fire that sustained them went out, if there would be anything left but ash. For now, she was once more malleable metal under his hands, mouth and body.

* * *

><p>Crews asked if she wanted to know if he'd killed Carl Ames. She said "<em>no<em>" because she didn't need him to tell her – she knew. She knew he could be violent, but he was not stupid and killing Ames would have been stupid. He was everyone's first and best suspect. She smiled when he told her he'd really rather not go back to prison. He could joke about it with her, like her snide comments about her alcoholism – they hid their true fears from everyone but each other.

When IAD finished with him and complained loudly to Lieutenant Davis, she feigned disinterest. But when her father showed up angry and Crews was "_invited to the Lieutenant's office to talk"_, she watched obliquely as a simple cant of her father's head dismissed their boss, the woman in charge of the homicide investigation, Karen Davis. Charlie watched his partner try _not_ to watch their interaction, but everyone in that bay was watching the two alpha males face off. Dani's interest was two fold. She was interested in the reactions of both men – her father whom she both loved and loathed and her partner / lover who she was beginning to wonder if she felt the same way about.

Part of her liked him and part of her hated Crews because she could not understand him. He embodied what he'd said to her their very first day together, "_you don't have to understand here to be here_." But nonetheless, here she was, with Crews and not with Crews. She did not, could not, understand him or why she was drawn to this decidedly different, even strange man. She knew she was fascinated with a man who did not fear her father; virtually everyone else did – even her. Not Crews - he baited him, poked at him and provoked the mighty Jack Reese and then stood toe to toe in full view of every other detective in the bay. Crews was in complete control of himself.

Her father menaced, even without hearing the words she knew there as a threat on his lips and in his eyes. Crews just smiled and did not back away. He didn't even blink. That had to piss Jack Reese off – she knew he was used to getting his way, to winning every argument, to being top dog, but no one dominated Charlie Crews. She hid a smile and pretended to be annoyed as she took her file and went to talk with the man who'd cut the throat of a young girl just to capture her voice. This show was over. Crews was not going to come running out of that office with his tail between his legs like a "normal guy" because Crews was not normal and no one knew that better than her.

* * *

><p>He sat cross-legged in Farthingale's Cheviot Hills apartment examining receipts. His gaze flickered to the nearly empty cupboards and nearly empty closets. It could be him that lived here. The apartment was devoid of personal effects, just the essentials – a single bowl, cup and spoon; clothes for work; nothing else – nothing unnecessary. But in Edward Farthing's home and in Joseph Gale's home there were personal things, wine bottles, signs of interests, hobbies, sports team caps and wives (plural). <em>How could a man simultaneously be no one and two someones? It was too much wasn't it?<em>

Each of his wives had a robust, full and even loving relationship to man with one foot in each world and not fully in either.

_Was that his destiny? Did his quest for his truth damn him to be neither fully in this world or that one_? Stuck, inlimbo or purgatory – unable to climb into heaven or sink into hell, duhka – as the Buddhist termed it. He wondered if it was his lack of commitment that kept things with Dani from moving forward.

He wanted that - or at least he thought he wanted that. Dani Reese - his partner and something more, something different. Sure, the sex was great, but he wanted to be more to her than a work out partner – even though their exercise was between the sheets. He'd worked hard to overcome her objection to their coupling, but recent circumstance helped him a bit. The episode with Rick the rapist forced her to reach out. It was him that she reached for; that meant something. He knew it and so did she. They wobbled on unsteady legs like a newborn colt. Then the all night, several night manhunt for Jeffery Farmer restored their fragile balance. His infatuation with Mary Ann Farmer faded as his Persian princess granted him access to her bedchamber again.

In the intervening weeks, they'd been together six, no seven times, but it wasn't the frenzied blitz style attack he'd grown to expect from her. Instead one day after work she'd clasped his hand and led him to her car. They rode in silence, didn't make out in her car or the parking garage. He'd followed where she led, her apartment. The one he'd broken down the door to. She unlocked the door and his shadow warmed her while she worked the deadbolt. He began touching her before they crossed the threshold and once inside he kissed her sweetly, his hands returning to familiar places. She led him down the hall and into her bedroom, striping clothes off him as though this were normal for them. _But how could she be with a man who was in two places? A man who was two people?_ She would end up just as hurt and betrayed as those two wives – Mrs. Farthing and Mrs. Gale.

When they finally made the right connections and began hunting the Free State bomber, part of him recognized the duality of purpose, the Zen of "not looking for what's not there" and what that meant. She grasped it too and that made him smile. There was not so much daylight between them – not anymore.

That day in the RV Park, he saved her life with a single word, but it was that she listened and obeyed – and that was truly remarkable. That tripwire could have killed them both, but his word triggered an impulse built upon trust. Beneath the single uttered word was an idea – it said _I will protect you; I will make sure you are not hurt. Trust me, because I trust you. _And she did. That saved them both.


	9. Chapter 9 Serious Control Issues

**Everything is Connected**

**Serious Control Issues**

_Bars and locks. He no longer needs them. Nate carries them with him everywhere he goes. _ It was something Crews said and while he wasn't talking about himself; he was talking about himself. If she looked hard at her partner in just the right light, she could still see the prisoner there, just at his edges.

Some days it was in the way he stood; his posture rigid and strong shoulders tight. There was a tenseness in his slender frame, bending at the edges from the rigidity of his muscles. Crews seemed like the personification of a lot of things, but bending light was one of them. Only he did it through sheer force of will rather than a trick of the light. She could see it because she knew his strength in ways others could only imagine.

Some days he stood as if he was preparing to fight, his fists clenched or his fingers flexing anxiously in anticipation of violence – as if he desired it. She read those things in him now because of the way she knew him. Those were the days she had to fight to keep her hands off him. She was drawn to the darkness in him and her desire to release it – to bask in the glow of his red-hot fury had become a new mission, a new desire. Crews hid this from the world, but she'd glimpsed it and it intrigued her.

Just like the impassioned plea he'd made to Nancy that "_prison doesn't know how strong it made you._" His seemingly meaningless comments were tiny cracks in the intricately woven chain mail armor that surrounded him. Even on their darkest nights together she felt it – that armor. He kept parts of him hidden, secret and while she vehemently denied it; she desperately wanted to know those secrets. Crews' armor was a part of his psyche now and on the worst of days he remained trapped in the thing that protected him. The world to him remained a prison and he was locked inside it.

The way he related to the lost boy, Nate, whose past was stolen and supplanted with a false one, made her heart ache for him. All that had been taken from this innocent, now profoundly changed, man was there in his eyes and it had been from the beginning, she just refused to see it. Now she found it hard to look away. When she told him gently, there might be another reason they hadn't found Nate; she was cautious, tentative, even fearful - of hurting him. He seemed more fragile then than he ever had before, but only to her and only because she'd begun to care enough, to take the time, to really know her partner – not only as a cop, but as a man. The incident also marked the first time he'd asked her if he could come home with her – just to sleep.

She'd acquiesced to his request, but as they climbed into bed she reminded him of his promise - not to touch her – just to sleep. Just to hear the sound of another's breathe in your same space and to know that you are not alone. It was all he desired – well, not all…but on that night it something that was important. It was this game they played on that night.

Each time his hand would caress her face or brush her back, she would chide him and the hand would retreat to lie lightly on his chest. His sigh was heartbreaking, but sex for either of them tonight would contain dangerous elements of emotion they both sought to avoid. He wanted to take comfort in her and she wanted to be that for him – both sensed how terribly dangerous that was for people as damaged as they. They could do meaningless, angry, taunting, playful, but this…this bordered on something neither could name but both feared.

She awoke in the pre-dawn hours to find him wrapped around her as usual, their legs intertwined and him holding her against his chest. Her head was buried against his sternum and she could hear the slow measured breathing that told her he still slumbered. Beneath that was the steady rhythmic beat of his strong heart. For those few moments he was her meditation; his breathing and heartbeat. Then she shifted slightly and he woke. He peered down at her with those blue eyes she knew so well. They crinkled at the corners warning her he was about to smile and then he did. A soft, lazy smile that was true.

"How is this not touching me?" she probed lightly.

"Hey," his voice was heavy with sleep, "don't look at me. I'm still on my side of the bed," he argued and then yawned and stretched.

He was right. He had remained on his half of the bed; it was she who had migrated to lay along side him. She blushed furiously and rolled away from him.

"Hey," he caught her arm and kept her from retreating. "Did you hear me complaining?"

"You're still touching me," she countered was mischief in her tone.

He carefully removed his hand, but made no effort to move from his position over her. His face bore a haze of rusty color, the hint of a beard that she never saw in the light of day. He pursed his lips as if to speak and then thought better of it. Confusion colored his eyes and that well hidden vulnerability she knew lurked under his layers of Zen.

Her hand reached for his face and his eyes returned to her. The color in them settled, but wonder played across his features. Slowly, she trailed her thumb across his lower lips and then planted a tiny kiss there. His eyes fluttered shut and peace, tranquility and something else – indescribable held them in place for just a moment.

Then Dani revisited him lips and left another kiss, then another and another, each more substantial than the last. His hand slid under her to pull her to him and she chastised him again in a teasing tone. "Are you touching me?"

He growled his dissatisfaction, but withdrew his hand. He played by her rules.

She licked her lips, put her hand behind his neck and gently pulled him down to her. A long lean leg slid between hers and she mumbled the warning, "Crews," into his ear. A shuddered sigh left him, but he seemed unable or unwilling to withdraw. She continued to kiss him, his brow, his cheeks, both corners of his mouth. Her tongue drew a hot line across his lower lip and he could no longer resist – he reached for her.

The want in him was not like any other time. He wanted her sexually, but this was also something else, something more. He kissed her; they kissed each other as though kissing was all there was. The rest of the world retreated. His hands found their familiar haunt, buried deep in her hair and his body shifted to cover hers, then he kissed her deeply, sweetly and slowly until she thought her heart might break. They stopped breathless, resting forehead-to-forehead, nose-to-nose.

"I can't not touch you, Dani," he whispered his confession in his own peculiar fashion. "Please don't ask me to," he pled with her, "I wanna touch you." His eyes shone in the long rays of morning light. The sun lit his pale features illuminating his freckled face and blonde lashes. He waited for her answer, once again capable of a restraint that she envied.

She nodded her assent because to give voice to it would show the degree of emotion she felt. His hands touched her reverently, stroking her face and throat. He kissed her again deeply. One arm wound under her lifting her towards him, as his face dropped to her neck and he inhaled deeply before kissing her collarbone and moving lower. Her hands were in his short hair; her short nails raking his scalp lightly. If anyone ever repeated the sounds she made for him, with him, she'd die of embarrassment, but he was everywhere, licking, kissing, touching and stroking her. His mumbled pledges of supplication joined her wordless offerings as they achieved harmony. Her body sang in tune and rhythm with his as they became one.

They were on fire but it was a slow burn. The deep orange of the rising sun lit them both and she shut her eyes sure the illusion would stop, but it didn't. She could see orange through her eyelids, the color of burnish bronze and when she opened her eyes his hair was lit in silhouette like an angel. She gripped him tightly and when the blackness took them both, they lay intertwined with smiles on their faces and peace in their hearts.

He woke first an idea fixed in his head. He was certain he loved her and it scared him more than anything had since prison. She felt so good, so right, so very perfect. He had no illusions; she was broken like him. Theirs would be a difficult, and tempestuous relationship, but only she seemed to fit him in all the right places –snug against the contours of his body and deep in his soul. For a moment his heart ran away with things and he considered he might possessed the power to heal; himself and her, but then the reality of their situation set in.

They were both hiding things from each other. Her photo adorned his conspiracy wall and he could not divine her connection. Something about her and her father… but Dani didn't like her father. _Let me make this easy on you. I spent my childhood trying to figure out if my dad was only mean or just plain bad. And you…I don't really understand you, I don't really like you, but you're not one of the bad guys._ She'd brazenly lied to him and yet it was the closest she'd come a compliment, not spoken in the throes of passion.

He knew different; some days he was a _bad_ man - vicious, vengeful and furious. He'd done bad things and so had she. _Was she doing them still? And what did she have to do with the Bank of LA? She was what…twelve at the time?_ She held such strong feelings about it. There was something there, something that would come between them eventually - because nothing, not money, not love, not the job came between him and his quest for truth. _Would she become a casualty too?_

He slipped quietly out of bed and dressed in silence watching her sleeping like a princess. She projected such toughness, but under that heavy armor and the thick layer of concrete protecting her; she was as fragile as spun sugar. He was determined not to hurt her; he'd find a way even it is seemed impossible because he was pretty sure she loved him too.

Dani said Hastings had serious control issues, but they were nothing compared to what Charlie Crews was prepared to sacrifice in his quest for truth. All of it, friendship, love, trust would fall by the wayside and he'd destroy her in the process. In the end, he'd remember that morning, not for the first religious experience either of them could recall since reaching puberty; but because it was the day he realized that he'd have to end things with her. He'd have to hurt her a little now in order to avoid hurting her a lot later.


	10. Chapter 10 Dig A Hole

**Chapter 10 – Dig a Hole**

Their day began with a dead man in the dirt wearing a shirt that read "I'm With Stupid." The arrow pointed up. The dead man knew what the rest of them could not.

_We are all stupid to some degree. Some are more obtuse than others. _

Currently, both our heroes were playing dumb. Charlie Crews had erected a wall between himself and the woman he worked with every day, the one he was in love with against all odds and his better judgment. He fought hard to maintain the distance, but it required constant vigilance. He fought with the energy of a six-year-old boy defending his sand castle against the onslaught of the rising tide.

Dani Reese was feeling the virtual moat he'd built around his Zen castle and it chaffed her. He wasn't supposed to be something she thought about, something she concerned herself with. He was supposed to be a fly, an annoyance, a pest. He wasn't supposed to be an impulse she couldn't control. She was sullen and surly.

They hadn't had sex in two weeks; a fight was brewing.

"I'm with stupid," she read the dirt covered t-shirt, noting the odd placement of the arrow. "Isn't the arrow supposed to point at the person next to you?" _The person next to her was him and he was being stupid; she wanted him to know. _

"I guess he was just admitting the truth," he mused.

"That he was stupid?" she asked snidely. They were in public. She couldn't talk to him the way she wanted to. She was now too attuned to him sexually and self-conscious the whole world could see that she was sleeping with her partner. It weakened her preventing her from pushing him around in the ways that she desperately wanted to. He was using that public shield to his maximum advantage. He smiled blithely knowing he was untouchable now; not so later. But later…was not now. Now… he reigned supreme.

Their gamesmanship was enviable to the best chess masters on the planet.

"That no one knows anything," his words were true and yet…they cut both ways. He didn't know her; she didn't know him. Their carnal pursuits didn't count as true knowledge. She couldn't know what was in his heart. He couldn't know if she was part of the conspiracy that set him up. The sharp seed of doubt Roman Nevikov planted in him had taken root and sent tendrils of thorny roots into his heart.

She understood the undercurrent of his words and it pissed her off – as did his catlike aloofness. "I know he's dead," she argued. The tone of her voice was designed to get a response from him. She was 100% right about that and she knew it. She'd have some damned certainty about something.

"That's not the truth. That's just a fact," he espoused his Zen armor into the air contradicting her directly. Words would protect him, except that they wouldn't…they couldn't.

"Looks like a rose," he observed focusing on the job.

She was now pissed beyond hiding behind the polite veneer of civility.

"Oh…you gonna tell me that's the truth?" The venom that crept into her tone was deliberate. _Who the hell did he think he was? Mister I've been a detective for five whole minutes was now lecturing her on truth_. She hated that she wanted more than just the truth from him. He was supposed to be a rookie, a mark, an easy lay and then putty in her capable hands. He'd turned out to be something altogether different, unexpected and surprising, but in a good way…at least she thought it was a good way. Then just as suddenly, he'd grown cold and aloof; she found that she missed him in the same way she did drugs, with that dull throbbing ache and emptiness inside that gnawed at her.

"No," he replied in a calm, level tone that only served to further infuriate her.

"That's just a dead flower."

A dead flower held by an admittedly stupid man – a euphemism for this whole childish romantic infatuation he had with her. They were in public, at work and therefore this could not turn into the real row she wanted. He could feel her heat, her energy burning through the skin of her armor. He continued to push her away with his words; his blanket of Zen.

"This guy's been in the ground for who knows how long, we dig him out; then after we're done we're gonna put him back in." The undercurrent in his words was their own private argument. It was about the case and it wasn't about the case. He was telling her they'd dredged up something that was better left buried.

"Is there somewhere else you think maybe he should go?" she challenged. She was dangerously close to saying, "fuck it" and just letting him go. He could go back into his hole, back to the empty suit he was five months ago when they starting fucking and fell in love. She could switch it off too. She could quit him cold turkey. He wasn't THAT good, he wasn't THAT addictive. He was just so damned good at getting under her skin.

Naturally, the business where the dead man was buried was the Las Palmas Zen Center. _Of course, it was._ It was as though the whole fucking universe was now something to do with Zen – since she'd met and fell in love with Charlie Crews. She sat closer than she needed to on the hood of the car, _next to him_. It was LA, full of like, sunshine and warmth. She didn't need to be close to him; but she wanted to. So she asked him about something she swore she'd never discuss.

"What exactly is a Zen Center?"

"It's a place where people interested in their spiritual journey sit and do nothing, which as it turns out is nearly impossible." _Almost as impossible as having sex with your dark, damaged partner without falling in love – nearly impossible._

"Getting buried alive part of that spiritual journey?" she teased darkly.

The undercurrent in her insinuation was about to turn into a dangerous riptide. It threatened to sweep him away. She was so attractive, like a beautiful water nymph, at home in the dark, dangerous and deadly waters swirling around her. But that was where he was, buried alive. He swam there on his own and he was finding escaping the draw of her harder than he'd imagined.

"Not as a rule – no," he replied always quick with a retort making light of it, "though every center has it's own way."

She didn't smile.

* * *

><p>They spent the next few days traveling back in time. Ten years.<p>

Time tempered her anger as the depth of his sequestration permeated - she truly felt it for the first time.

"Who knows where they were ten years ago?" It was a common refrain sung by their many witnesses. It was a legitimate question for the case and for the world at large.

"I do," his quiet voice said each time people professed that _no one knew_.

It was then she saw the crack in his armor and the deep chasm it cut into his psyche. He was walled away for over a decade. While the rest of the world spun, while time passed, while people got older, got drunk, got high, got married…he waited…alone. The kind of alone she couldn't even begin to imagine. He scared her then. She wasn't sure if she was scared of him; or scared for him – but she knew his fear in the quiet, small way he said those words each time the question came up and he said, "I know."

When he asked her to meditate with him, she initially refused and then agreed because she was beginning to feel…something for him. She wasn't sure if it was compassion or pity, but it was no longer annoyance. He was past the frontlines of her war on the world and deep inside her secured perimeter. She wasn't sure when or how that happened, but it had.

* * *

><p>She knew that line had been crossed for certain when she found herself sitting in his drive one night following the case closure. It marked a departure for them in that she came to him. He didn't want to want her, but he did. He didn't want to need her, but he did. They both knew it. For once, for her…sex wasn't about conquest or dominance; it was about comfort.<p>

His door wasn't locked and the house was darkened. She knew he wouldn't sleep; he couldn't. It wore on him. How the rest of them carried on and he'd marked time for those twelve long years. When her silhouette appeared in the doorway to his room, he sighed. He didn't see her smile. He welcomed her the same way he used to welcome that precious hour of sun in the yard during his time in solitary. She sustained him now and in the long darkness to follow. His desire for her physically and emotionally dueled with his need to push her away, but Dani Reese was not easily cast aside.

"Move over," she demanded. There was compassion in her tone that he'd never heard before.

"I don't think you should be here," he argued even as he swept the sheets back and made room for her. His head and mouth argued in a tone his heart just couldn't sell.

"Uh-huh," she completely ignored him. Her warmth radiated against his chilled skin. The night air was cold and real darkness had yet to arrive – that would come later. Her hands rode up his scarred chest and he stilled them over his heart.

"Dani," he protested albeit weakly.

"Shut up," she kissed him breathless, "just shut up, Crews."

And he did.

Their lovemaking was not the wild frenzied sex of strangers; nor the dull, simple task of the mated, but the deliberate, caring, patient kind. He held very still as she explored his many scars and tattoos with unsure hands. He answered her low spoken questions with simple yet honest answers and tried his best not to hide. His pale hands worshipped her as he held her close, kissing her body all over long before they made love.

When they did couple, it was reassuring a strengthening bond – one he'd tried to reject and one she didn't want. He didn't patronize her; he didn't pretend or fawn. His desire was as real as his fear. She let him lead here, if nowhere else.

Her fiery affect burned away the panicked feeling he had; clearing both his heart and his mind. She obliterated the thought and fear he was invisible. Her trust in him was growing, as was his connection to her. Despite his better efforts not to be attached to anything, he was finding her harder and harder to live without – particularly after this night. She made it clear to him that he was no longer alone or forgotten, as the rest of the planet trudged on. He was part of it now, part of her.

* * *

><p>She was gone in the morning when he woke. But the memory of her lingered as did the taste of sweat on her skin, just on the edge of something nameable on his tongue. They were in dangerous territory now, far too familiar, achingly close and he was reeling from the knowledge she saw him – really saw him. No one had in years. They saw the convict, the murderer, the coldblooded killer, the millionaire, the Zen warrior, but Dani Reese saw – him. All of him; good and bad and still she came. In doing so, she saved him from the darkness that often threatened to consume him.<p>

He felt ashamed and selfish because her loyalty was purchased with his lies and she needed someone who would be honest with her. The goodness he felt was tempered by the bitter aftertaste of his guilt. But they were past the point of no return. No amount of Zen would cast her off. Whether or not they wanted it…they were…together. Two broken halves of a whole separated by time and distance that somehow fused together and formed something entirely new, something dangerous, something neither could name, but both felt it and it scared them both to death.


	11. Chapter 11 Fill It Up

**Chapter 11 – Fill it Up**

He asked her to cover for him. He asked her; not Stark. She argued because they needed the public cover and her on the record objections, but they'd had that talk in a series of looks BEFORE Officer Bobby Stark's snarky agreement with a slap on her back. She covered for him because he was her partner and because he asked. She and Crews spoke a language that didn't need words – or not that many. Crews knew she'd do it; they'd had that conversation in the moment before Charlie's gum smacking former partner _voluntold_ him that "they'd do it." She was not Stark's partner on this or anything else, but for Charlie…

But in agreeing to cover for Crews, she'd inadvertently signed up for an all day misadventure with her least favorite person on the planet – Bobby Stark. And just when she thought it couldn't get worse…enter the snake…and not just your average, garden-variety snake. No…a huge friggin' python.

Crews so owed her. She was going to make the tall redhead pay in ways he'd only begun to imagine; in her bed later, much later. She was going to wear him out, but in the interim she'd use her time wisely. When Bobby Stark shut the door to that bedroom and egged her on…she gave it to him – both barrels. She'd read the report, the investigation (if you could call it that) into Crews' conviction for triple homicide. Stark was asked one small task – to back up his partner's assertion that the scratches on his hands were earned during an arrest, not killing the Seybolt family. It was a simple enough request, an easy lie – one she'd have done for him without a second thought. It was what partners did.

"Okay, Stark what I wanna know is why didn't you back up your partner?"

It was then his fear showed. It showed through his bravado, through his biting tough delivery, through his layers of belly fat and years of experience. Stark was afraid – of IAD. It seemed that everyone was afraid of something, everyone except Crews. Life had taught him that fear kills and it had taught him this lesson to the extent he was no longer capable of fear. Stark was weak, so she let him go – listening to the silence left in the wake of his admission she heard the cacophony of mice in the closet.

_Food for a larger predator_ – _isn't that what we all are?_ She thought. She shook it off and concentrated on the case.

Crews called checking in. He'd be a little longer and while he was in a car; it was not his car. She could hear the throaty growl of a big engine, but not his engine. She wasn't some lovesick fool, she didn't forget how to be a detective when her lover phoned in; he'd changed cars, but why? She didn't have time or the inclination to ask. She read him well enough by now to know when he was not going to answer her….or worse….when he'd throw up a wall of Zen.

She could feel the darkness in him through the phone line, riding the thin tether of his taut voice. She'd keep his secret and hold his trust next to her, it was now hers alone this gift that Stark no longer had – Charlie Crews' trust.

She focused on finding a warm gun coated in meat sauce instead of what Crews was up to. She failed as he often occupied her thoughts and all the dope in that room was beginning to made her edgy and nervous, but they caught the snake eventually. The evidence was cartoonishly evident in his distended belly.

* * *

><p>Crews was balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. He was pulsing with energy and purpose. After missing Hollis, at his house in Indio, Hollis called him to arrange a meet in a public place – the Bank of LA was only fitting. Charlie would give him what he'd asked for, but it wasn't going to go the way Hollis thought. Clubbing the man in the head with his old gun felt good. The dull thud of his body hitting the trunk of the car sounded as good as it felt. It was solid sound, like a heavy, old truth.<p>

He'd waited almost fifteen years to know this truth. As he sweat in the high, hot LA sun digging that hole while Kyle Hollis confessed and Connie listened over the phone, it felt good, it felt warm, it felt right. His darkness walked in the light; it walked unashamed in the noonday sun as he told Hollis "you shouldn't have killed my friends."

He'd almost told Hollis about those years in solitary but held it back because not even Crews wanted to go back there. Those days when he'd lost who he was, lost his grip on reality, lost faith in his own innocence, lost more than he could ever recover from a simple confession. The funny thing was his demon, his darkness wanted to kill Hollis – to bash his head in with that shovel, to bury him in that shallow dirt grave and to walk away to find more evil to combat, but something stopped him.

And that something was her – Reese.

He imagined the look of dismay that would cross her dark eyes. The disappointment she would feel, but never say a word about. She trusted him, she covered for him, she was still covering for him – to what? _To commit murder? To become what they'd said he was? To become a cold blooded killer? Under all that hate, that rage, that dark light that was vengeance was he really a cop or a vigilante?_ In the end, he made his choice and he chose to be the man she deserved.

* * *

><p>When Crews returned to her, he asked yet another favor, but one she was happy to oblige. As they walked Kyle Hollis into the police station, officers and detective rose to express awe and appreciation at the fait au complete Crews had accomplished. She watched as nothing approaching pride crossed his face. He wasn't really there at all. He was fifteen years in the past, watching his world slide away and this wouldn't bring it back.<p>

When he glanced at her, she smiled softly. It wasn't congratulations or celebratory, her message was more subtle and yet, more important than that. _You still matter, you matter to me, you matter in the now _she tried to say with her simple smile. Through the layers of shock, blue eyes met brown and she watched him ease slightly. His battered brow held traces of blood and scrapes of a hard won fight. The man he went to prison for all those long years ago was in custody, defeated, captured, and yet Crews was not yet free, not nearly.

* * *

><p>When he walked Hollis into that police station, people rose, nodded, cheered, clapped, but the gratification that warmed him most was the soft smile on his often dour young partner's face and the pride in her eyes. They didn't matter, she did. She was proud of the choice he'd made and that made it the right one. He could have gone either way. Hurting Hollis would have been gratifying, arresting him was less so, but it didn't resolve the larger issue. Who'd framed him and why?<p>

He still needed to know.

* * *

><p>"I gotta a lot of questions for you," she'd said, sitting along side him in the cool quiet of shaded concrete stairs. He was resolved to tell her everything; then his phone rang. It was Jack Reese.<p>

When Crews left him on that rooftop, he'd done it with the understanding that Reese would do what was right. He'd either "get right" with Dani and turn himself in or he'd step off that roof into the empty air below. Charlie didn't really have a preference, but out of respect for Reese he'd let her father have the choice.

"It's Jack Reese. Is now a good time?" the man asked with more confidence than he should have had. "I have the girl. The Seybolt girl," Jack said. Charlie looked up and Dani Reese smiled at him from those stairs. They'd been so close to happiness; it was heartbreaking.

She knew who he was talking to. She was a detective and she'd heard her father's voice on the phone before Crews stepped away. Now he'd be forced to lie to her to find Rachel. He'd be forced to push her away from the ugliness that was his quest for the truth of his past and he hoped it didn't mean that his future got lost in the process. He wasn't sure of much, but he was sure of this – Dani Reese was his future.

* * *

><p>They sat so close their thighs touched as the tension of the day rolled off them. She'd asked for answers and he'd agreed to give them. In the wake of Hollis' arrest, he was lighter and more free than she'd ever seen him. He was eating a cup of cut up fruit while she sipped on a soda, when her father called and took him away. Her father took everything good away from her. She hated him, but she also loved him – with the attachment of a child. How long would it take to burn away the affection of a child and for her to see him as he truly was?<p>

When Crews' eyes returned to hers, he was no longer free. He was bound again, under the yoke of something her father had said to him. There would be no truths for them on this day. He'd hide from her and she'd let him. Like a wild animal, Charlie Crews would take time, patience and maybe even a little coaxing before he would walk without looking behind him. The future was not here – not yet.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's Note<em>:** _Sorry about the alternating POV, some people find it confusing (annoying), but I felt it was the best way to convey all the non-verbalized behaviors in this episode. Thanks for your patience with me as I have been away from this tale for a long time. Now the biggest, most important question...who want's to see Season Two's parallel story line? LMK - Reviews are like crack to me :)_


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